What the Bauhaus school of design lacked in levity, it more than made up for in talent, especially if you were in the market for a really uncomfortable chair.
The Bauhaus school was established in 1919 by architect Walter Gropius, in the German city of Weimar. In 1925, it moved to a highly functionalist, pre- fab campus designed by Gropius, in Dessau. Finally, in 1932, it shifted to Berlin, where it was closed in 1933 by the Nazis, who believed it was a hotbed of communism.
The initial incarnation of the Bauhaus (which translates as 'building house') focused heavily on craft, especially pottery, metalwork and art. When the school moved to Dessau, the focus turned to industrial functionalism. Gropius even came to admire American industrialist Henry Ford's approach to industrial capitalism and manufacturing techniques. And so, in 1925, the school's designs were retailed, unsuccessfully, via a catalogue. Most Bauhaus products were uncomfortable and while many had the look and feel of something churned out in a factory, they were, in fact, handcrafted and unsuitable for mass production.
Still, it was during this period that some of the most famous Bauhaus designs evolved, such as Marcel Breuer's Wassily Chair (1926), a chrome and leather strapped contraption that is still manufactured today, by Knoll. Another is the LC4 Chaise by Le Corbusier, made by Cassina. And there was the Barcelona chair (pictured) by Mies van der Rohe, who designed it for the 1929 World Exposition in the Catalonian city for the king and queen of Spain and which Knoll has manufac- tured since 1953.
Bauhaus designers followed socialist principles and claimed to want to produce functional, mass-produced furniture for the working class. The reality, however, was that the products became status symbols for the cultural elite.
But there's no arguing the huge influence the philosophy was to have on the functionalist approach to design that dominated the 20th century, and anybody living in a contemporary home can trace its genesis back to Bauhaus.